minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Introduction:
Born in 1864, Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer also known as the founder of the Photo-Secessionist and Pictorialist photography movement. He moved to a more austere modernist style later in life. While his personal style changed considerably over his 50 year career, he remained focused on one driving passion: making photography accepted as an art form. He considered himself to be artist with a camera and refused to sell his photographs or seek employment doing anything else. Alfred Stieglitz's significance lies as much in his work as an art dealer, exhibition organiser, publisher and editor as it does in his career as a photographer.

"Winter, Fifth Avenue" is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1893. The photograph was made at the corner of the Fifth Avenue and the 35th Street in New York. It was one of the first pictures that Stieglitz took using a hand held camera. Here’s what Stieglitz said about the photograph; “In order to obtain pictures by means of the hand camera it is well to choose your subject, regardless of figures, and carefully study the lines and lighting. After having determined upon these watch the passing figures and await the moment in which everything is in balance; that is, satisfies your eye. This often means hours of patient waiting. My picture, ‘Fifth Avenue, Winter,’ is the result of a three hours’ stand during a fierce snow-storm on February 22d, 1893, awaiting the proper moment. My patience was duly rewarded. Of course, the result contained an element of chance, as I might have stood there for hours without succeeding in getting the desired picture." There are prints of the picture at multiple museums around the country.

Study the finished image, as Stieglitz intended it to be viewed, the first shown below. Compare it to the original uncropped version beneath it. Then share your opinion about the image and the crop. Below are some questions to help you formulate your thinking.

Questions to Consider
1. What do you make of the FIRST image? Does it tell a story? What does the photo make you feel? What do you think of the composition? Would you want it on your wall? Why or why not?
2. This image is a crop from the second, larger image. Both were sold as prints, but Stieglitz preferred the first, cropped version. Why do you think he preferred it? Which do you prefer? Why?
3. Do you crop your photos? Why or why not? If you’d like, please share a photo you cropped into a better image and show us the pre- and post-crop, then tell us why you cropped the way you did.
4. This photograph was made during Stieglitz’s pictorialism phase, when he preferred soft edges and a painterly aesthetic, and labored long and hard post-capture to create that look. He later became more of a modernist, with a sharper more austere style. Glance over some of his later work here https://www.moma.org/collection/works/55769 then decide which of his styles you prefer, and which is most like yours. Share your thoughts.
5. In the 1800s, photography was very young and equipment was heavy and complex. Stieglitz made this image with a camera that used the latest technology, and was a real wonder to photographers because it was the first that could be used hand-held in the field. Do you value portability in your equipment? Has portability ever become a barrier for you in your photographic work? How have you addressed the barrier?

Links For Further Study
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/stieglitz-alfred/artworks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Stieglitz
https://archive.artic.edu/stieglitz/alfred-stieglitz/
https://modernismmodernity.org/articles/unrarified-air
https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2016/10/30/8-lessons-alfred-stieglitz-can-teach-you-about-photography/
https://photographyandvision.com/2015/06/15/monday-inspiration-alfred-stieglitz/ (VIDEO)
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/alfred-stieglitz?all/all/all/all/0

fair use:; https://gittermangallery.com/artist/Alfred_Stieglitz/works/2020

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fair use: https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/alfred-stieglitz-1864-1946-winter-fifth-avenue-5972261-details.aspx

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Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

For me the image is about motion and the struggles of transportation in that era and weather. I much prefer the crop because it puts me more into the action; in fact, I'd better move out of the way pretty soon or I'll be run over

Wouldn't want it on my wall because I'm more interested in soft light and natural beauty.

Portability is very important to me - I don't even like tripods - because I'm most interested in fleeting moments of light and weather, or critters in motion. I enjoyed my bridge camera, Canon SX50, so much I wore out my first one in just over a year! Now I use two M4/3 cameras, each with a lens for a specific purpose so I never change them.

I do crop frequently. Birds, insects and critters often don't pose exactly where one would like and sometimes action shots, such as the hops harvests, preclude careful composition or close-up framing. I also have a lot of interest in distant landscapes such as Mt. Rainier or moonset at sunrise. And with my local area being farm and ranch country, access is usually blocked by steep muddy ditches, barbed wire fences, and roaming dogs!

Occasionally I discover a crop in pp that I hadn't thought of when shooting. Below is an example. Removing the sky makes me feel I'm within touching distance of the lush apples. Also, that small amount of smoky white sky adds nothing of interest IMO.

Thanks for another stimulating Masters topic, Minnie!

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Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

I think it appropriate that you've chosen a photograph --rather than any of the various paintings/painters you've featured in the past-- to 'challenge' (to inspire? to incite? to make question? to make a reader/viewer seek to think beyond their usual entrenched preconceptions?)-- to this installment of your 'Monthly Master's Critique" Paula. UHH is, presumably, a forum that concerns itself with that limited class of images that originated in a camera, using one photographic process or another, and 'imagery' writ large seems to be so little (or mis-) understood that I sometimes question why I (or others) bother to do or say.

Your initial set of questions, unfortunately, reverts to past practices. The concept of 'story' (in either the cropped or uncropped versions) --much less how this particular image might conceivably make me 'feel,' or whether or not I'd want either version hanging on a wall in my home-- in an image is a red herring. 'Story' for most --or so I'd judge by what I've seen generally espoused on UHH-- is a word used tangentially, and usually refers to 'stories' completely extraneous to the image itself, so I'll defer further by saying I've held a made-by-Steiglitz print of this actual photograph (though only the cropped version he apparently preferred) and thought it not only priceless, but significantly 'better' than anything I or anyone will ever see duplicated on the internet.

Re: Q #2: No clue as to why AS might've preferred his crop, but I'd have liked to been able to ask him about it. There's just the slightest hint of what I (and others) would call an 'orphan' on the left side of the image. By that, I mean there's about 1/3 of what we know from the uncropped version is a person, but in the cropped version only appears to be something, 'a person?' on the extreme left edge, and while I find that chopped off person less a distraction than it might be an oversight, for all I know maybe Steiglitz would've claimed that that partially included person hints at some possibility that while unstated, there's more, there's something other, something outside and beyond what the crop contains. I know I've used a similar 'device' from time to time, but I likewise recognize that next to nobody picks up on any such '...and y'know, there's actually more but I've only hinted at it, and left it partially said and mostly implied...' sort of thing, but then most are unaware of such things, and believe they know only 'what the subject is' and/or 'where the eye goes' sorts of things in an image. As if seeing and thinking are somehow antithetical in imagery....

This is the second time today I've seen the word 'aesthetic' used in a post. (But I'll grant I haven't looked at a whole lot of posts today, much less recently.) The first time I saw and replied to one of your 'MM'sC's,' I tried to touch on what the foundations of Aesthetics are. Some use the word, but don't apparently have a lot of understanding --and clearly little background-- of what all 'aesthetics' entails, and don't have a clue as to what noted aestheticians these past several milenia have had to say about the concept of beauty and such.

Nobody would care in the slightest about anything I might say about your Q's #3, #4, or #5. Questions like those have barely any relevance to me, either (though I could go on and on and on about having hauled large format gear around in difficult places, or that yeah, I typically 'overshoot' with the expectation I'll want to crop --or somehow tweak, like maybe with a skew or a warp or whatever-- something slightly for compositional purposes).

Now, back to lurking I go.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Motion is exactly the same first impression I get - that extended arm of the coachman is the key to my interest. And in an era of images that were set up with still models, this had to be a novelty photographers of the age must have been intrigued with since it opened up an entirely new frontier conveying emotion or feeling.

Thanks for sharing an impactful example of cropping. The crop seems to increase the number of apples on the trees! Visual trickery by cropping to hone attention in on the areas of importance.

Like you, portability is of maximum importance to me. I have always felt constricted by a tripod; though I'm willing to use one if it's necessary I'll almost always do better without one.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thanks for chiming in, Jim, always fascinating to read your take on the image in question. And always feel free to respond to the questions, simply ignore them, or speak your mind on them! The questions are entirely optional, just an effort to get people to think a bit more past the usual "do you like it or not?". And yeah, the choices are sometimes to inspire and other times to incite. The goal of the thread over its 5 year run has been to do both, and to encourage members of this little community to think and talk about art both photographic and traditional, and how it might connect to what we do.

fergmark Loc: norwalk connecticut

I really only considered the crop question. As something to do I went through the process of whittling down the original, to the resulting crop. The two most interesting things I noticed were how the drivers head was very nearly in the cross hairs of the golden section in the original version, and how that turned into a bulls eye in the crop. Makes me think he gave a lot of attention to that compositional tool, but might explain the partial person on the left. I checked out a number of his compositions and the cropping is all over the place, from near to 4x5 to near 4x3, so it seems his cropping was driven by something unique to the individual images. Vivian Maier was one of the most precise followers of the golden section placed compositional elements, but then her prints are full frame. The second thing you notice is the near removal of the boards (if that is what they are) in the original's foreground, but included in the crop version. I like both versions for different reasons. Thats all I got.

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minniev Loc: MIssissippi

All you've got is plenty! (The questions are just prompts, no requirement to answer any or all!). You pointed out the golden section connection in a way that helps educate all of us, and thanks so much for taking the time to do that.

I wondered about those planks. In some prints, they were present and in others they were not. Perhaps he was undecided, as I sometimes am.

carlysue Loc: Columbus

My first impression is of the cold, hard, stark winter atmosphere. The cropped version shows more of the blowing snow across the buildings and the tough conditions of the horses and driver to struggle against the weather. It looks like it is freezing and miserable to be outside. The carriage ruts in the snow look slushy and messy and a good reminder of what is coming in a month or so. Its an excellent photograph but I'd prefer not to have the constant reminder of what winter will be. I'd prefer the soft, white, magical, glitter of freshly fallen snow on the evergreens and pretend that's what December will bring.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thanks for sharing! I agree it seems dark and cold. To me, that is it's value - that it conveys what the photographer saw rather viscerally. But like you, I'd prefer my snow white and fluffy and fresh!